Sunday, October 06, 2013

I’m going to share a secret with you all. It’s a
secret that you probably all already know, but bear with me; I don’t feel like
I’m much of a writer. I think I know baseball pretty well, and I enjoy watching
it and sharing my thoughts, which is why I write in this space as often as I
can. But as far as writing itself, that’s just not my forte. This column
doesn’t flow from my fingertips the way it always seemed to when Pauly C. was
in the driver’s seat. It’s an effort, and some weeks are easier than others.
This week falls into the “others” category. I spent an inordinate amount of
time staring at a blank Microsoft Word screen this week. I just wasn’t ready
for this season to be over. The “playoffs” were so fleeting that it was more of
a tease than anything. We should be talking about who’s starting game 3 against
Boston right now, not writing an autopsy on the season. I feel like I just read
a book that was missing the last two or three chapters. I know I said earlier
this season that all I wanted out of 2013 was meaningful baseball down the
stretch. I sat in Goodyear, AZ and told loyal reader Tim Futo that back in
March. But once I got a taste of the playoff run, I got greedy. I wanted more.
I thought that once the Indians made it to October, anything could happen. I
was ready to watch the Indians play deep into the fall, and came away crushed
with the abbreviated taste of the postseason.

So what was I supposed to write about? Wednesday’s
game? If you’re reading this column here on Sunday morning (or Monday afternoon,
depending on your pleasure), chances are good that you watched Wednesday’s
game. You’ve probably read several articles on Wednesday’s game, and are very
possibly sick of thinking about it by now. What more can I say? Should I talk
about planning for the 2014 season? Feels too soon to me. The body of the 2013
season isn’t even cold yet. A recap of the 2013 season? Ok, I suppose that
could interest some, but it just didn’t seem right for today. Do I just take
the week off and come back next week when there’s been a little bit of time to
reflect on recent events? Eventually, I was able to sit down and come up with what
you see before you today. I feel like a friend of mine has just been given bad
news, and I want to be there for him (you). I don’t want to call or stop by if
he doesn’t want me to, but I also want to be available if he needs to talk. So
if you need to talk, feel free to hang with us today on this Lazy Sunday. But
if you need a week off to process the hurt, I understand. See you when I see
you. Eric Wedge would have been proud of the grit and determination of the
column today; I really did my best to grind it out.

Does
Francona believe that makes the Indians' current run sustainable for many
years?

"That's
easier said than done, and I know that," Francona cautioned. "I am
excited about our future here, but you kind of take what you have now and try
to do with it what you can, and don't get too full of yourself. And then, when
it's over, you start thinking about next year and how you can get better."

Tito, Antonetti and the Indians are not planning to
rest on their laurels and expect to make the playoffs next year without making
improvements in the club. The Indians as currently constructed are close to
being contenders for the World Series title. But they aren’t there yet, and
they know that. The budget isn’t going to allow for the type of splash in the
free agent market the Indians made last season (Swisher and Bourn), but it won’t
have to. They’ll have to get both creative and lucky to improve the club,
making small trades (Aviles and Gomes) and picking up cheap veterans and hoping
they pan out (Kazmir and Giambi). The core of the club is strong, but this isn’t
a roster that can be expected to go deep into the playoffs without some
improvements.

Anthony
Castrovice wrote one of my favorite articles of the year earlier this week. He
took a look at the offseason moves made by the Indians in the context of
leadership and other non-statistical intangibles. Because there’s no real way
to quantify it with any sort of stat, there’s a tendency for some sabermatricians
and stat heads to ignore the effect that a manager has on a ballclub. Same with
intangibles like leadership and experience. As Castro explains:

Look, this is one of those stories that lacks statistical
support. Let's just put that out there right now.

Francona might be a two-time World Series winner, but at
the end of the day, he's merely a manager, a guy who is only going to perform
marginally better or worse than -- if not in line with -- the level of talent
he's afforded. Swisher might have a ring of his own from his Yankees days, but
hobbled by the sort of shoulder injury that can betray a batter's clout and
confidence, he was, for much of the season, not quite the reliable run-producer
the Indians hoped to pencil into the cleanup spot. And Giambi, a long ways from
that MVP heyday, didn't bat above the Mendoza Line this season.

But some stories tread beyond the statistical into the
anecdotal, into the physical and mental grind of a six-month season and all the
beautiful, bizarre and bumbling moments that come with it.

I fully
support the integration of advanced statistics like OPS+, WAR, RAR, ERA+ etc. They
help enhance some people’s understanding of the game, and are more predictive
than some of the “older” stats like batting average, RBI and runs scored. But
just because there’s no stat to encapsulate Tito Francona’s impact on the 2013
Indians doesn’t mean that he wasn’t partly responsible for the massive
improvement from the 2012 squad. Jason Giambi’s WAR, as calculated by Baseball
Reference, was -0.6.
But I’m wearing a Mardi Gras in September t-shirt as I write this article
because of a game that the Indians never would have won without him.
Nick Swisher had a down year in 2013, posting his lowest OPS+ since 2008. But I
watched the Indians crater down the stretch in 2012, and while I don’t know for
sure that Swisher’s infectious energy was at least partly responsible for
preventing a September swoon this year, I have a feeling that it helped.

“We’re always looking for the moves that we can make that are
levers, moves that will impact more than one player. Manager is one of those
moves, it can impact the culture, the attitude and the energy of the team.
Tito’s a guy that both has the confidence of having achieved the ultimate
within the game, the passion for the game that comes from just being a baseball
lifer and having the game running through his blood, as well as an appreciation
and desire to be here, which I think is extremely important for us. This is a
guy who wants to be here, that appreciates Cleveland, that has a history with
Cleveland. He appreciates our culture because he has a history and a bond with
our culture having worked with me and Chris. I think that resonates and has an
impact throughout our entire organization. Not just players; it has an impact
on our scouts, on our player development staff, on our front office. His
energy, his attitude has been infectious. It has rubbed off on everyone, and
that’s been a neat aspect of this camp.”

Antonetti and Shapiro pulled the right levers this
offseason, even though not all of them worked exactly the way they’d planned.
The 2013 Indians outperformed all but the most optimistic of prognostications,
providing an exciting playoff push culminating in an all-too-short one game
wild card playoff. With the playoff format of just two years ago, we’d be
getting ready to watch game 3 of the ALDS right now. I don’t know how many of
the Indians 92 wins Tito was responsible for, and I have no clue how to
quantify the leadership qualities of Jason Giambi, but I feel very safe in
saying that the Indians wouldn’t have had an opportunity to play Tampa Bay on
the corner of Carnegie and Ontario this past week without them. It’s no
coincidence that the worst-to-first Red Sox had a managerial change going into
this season as well, replacing the abject disaster that was Bobby Valentine
with the steadying influence of former Indian John Farrell. While it’s clear
that no manager can overcome poor talent on the field by his individual
brilliance alone, it’s also easy to see how a guy like Tito at the controls can
push a decent team a little further than they would have been able to get from
the players alone. And that’s before we even talk about the effect that pitching
coach Mickey Callaway had on the 2013 staff, helping turn Ewwbaldo back to the
Ubaldo! of old.

Grantland’s Andrew Sharp took a field trip to
Cleveland for the Indians and Browns games this week, and
survived to tell the tale. The Indians portion of the trip
can pretty much be summed up by a single line that he uttered after the end of
the game. “Sothisis what these people have been dealing
with. Jesus Christ.” Sharp manages to capture both the passion and frustration
of Cleveland fans, and does it without the usual level of degradation that
usually comes from national writers towards our fair city. He had front row
seats to the passion of a playoff crowd in Cleveland, and came away predictably
impressed with the energy and enthusiasm the fans in The Jake brought to the
table:

Fans in Cleveland didn't stop cheering. If there was a sense of doom as
soon as Delmon Young hit that home run, that anxious murmur only lasted for a
few minutes before the stadium got loud again and everyone went back to
shouting through every inning, standing for third strikes and full counts, and
everything else that normal, well-adjusted fans do at baseball games.

Sharp did get to see a Browns victory the next night
(despite a first quarter that nearly, nearly,
had me believing that Cleveland was indeed cursed), so at least he got to
see the town react to a positive sports situation as well. The entire article
is worth a read, as it’s always nice to see how an outsider feels when he/she
immerses themselves in your sports culture for a big game or two.

As
expected, Anthony Castrovice came through with one of the most comprehensive
and appropriate pieces in the aftermath of Wednesday’s loss.
The entire piece is required reading for any Indians fan, and I’m guessing most
of you have seen it already. It both looks back on 2013 with pride and casts a
cautiously optimistic eye towards 2014, recognizing that the Indians have come
a long way but still have some serious, challenging work to do to get over that
final hump. It’s exactly the type of thing I wish I could write, and the fact
that Castro had it out on the interwebs about three hours after the game’s
final pitch tells you everything you need to know about why he’s drawing a
paycheck from MLB for the pleasure of his thoughts. There are a couple of quotes
that I’d like to draw attention to, comments from individual players that help
put the season and the future into context. First, from catcher/DH/1B Carlos
Santana:

“I feel like we’re a family,” Santana said in the
aftermath of this loss, and this was coming from a guy who basically lost his
job this season, banished to DH duties at the age of 27.

The Santana comment calls to mind the movie Miracle, the fantastic Disney flick that
tells the story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team. This Indians team came
together like none I’ve ever seen. Even the mid-90’s clubs were famous for
their locker room divisions, winning because they were a supremely talented
squad more so than because of their ability to come together to achieve a
common goal. This team, with two notable exceptions that were removed in
mid-stream, was the classic “sum of the parts” squad. As in, the sum of the
parts as a whole was greater than if added up individually. No one on the team
hit more than 22 HR (Swisher) or drove more than 84 runs (Kipnis). Justin
Masterson’s 14 wins paced the pitching staff. None of the Indians figure to be
a factor in any of the postseason awards lists, other than Francona in the
Manager of the Year race. You don’t win 10 baseball games in a row if there’s a
weak link in the rotation or the lineup. They were even able to pick up Chris
Perez when he struggled in the back end of the bullpen. The team came together,
and that was a big reason they were able to make a run to the playoffs in 2013.

The next quote was from 2B/grinder/team leader Jason
Kipnis, reacting to a question about the crowd’s passion during the wild card
game:

“My first reaction is that it almost upsets me,”
Kipnis said, “because I wish I could play in front of a crowd like this every
single night. But it’s a long season. You knew if we made the playoffs, Cleveland
would rally behind us and come out. You tip the cap to them. They came out,
they were loud, they were amped up.”

Kipnis, an unquestioned on the field leader for the
team, could have easily slid by with a simple “great crowd” comment. But he
answered honestly, and told the assembled group of scribes that he was angry. I’m
glad he’s angry, because he has every right to be. And I’d very much prefer
anger to indifference. Kipnis, Swisher, Bourn and the rest of the team could
easily just go out every day, play in front of 10-12 thousand fans and cash
their (substantial) paychecks, apathetic to fan support or lack thereof. But
Kipnis (and others on the team) care about this team and this town. They’re
passionate, they play hard, and they deserve to be supported by the fans that
they’re out there playing for. I’m angry too. I’m mad that they only made it
one game into the playoffs, and I want them to be back next year. Watching them
play down the stretch, needing ten straight victories to secure a home playoff
game, living and dying with every pitch, every out…it was incredible.
Especially in comparison to watching the Indians play out the string for the
last 5 years with nothing on the line but next year’s draft slot. From the lows
of a Perez blown save to the incredible highs of a Giambi walk off home run,
this baseball season was as much fun as I remembered the playoff seasons of
days gone by. I love this team.

You may not be old enough to remember Hal Lebovitz articles in the Plain Dealer on Sundays. Was always a must read for me. I would go to the Plain Dealer drop off spot early Sunday Morning about 2 AM and buy that Sunday Paper (minus the 100 pages of ads) and take it home just to read Hal. Hal always had an interesting read. He would run this article that dealt with cutting high school football players and the effects it had on kids, or how he would make these soda wagers with friends with names like YaYa, and my favorite was his article of him counting his blessings at Christmas time and thanking his wife at every chance available. My point to all of this is I thought I would never fill that void again on Sunday. Then I found this blog while Paul was writing it. While it is different it still is my favorite read on Sunday Mornings Its titled Lazy Sunday and its called Diatribe, but maybe once in awhile, on a week that we have these voids from losing to quickly, think of Hal and how he had this knack to divert our attention. How he reminding us how it feels to be 15 and cut by his high school coach or how truly blessed we are to be alive in a city where we have a major league team that provided us a summer of hope and excitement. Just a thought Al You do a nice job on these Lazy Sundays.

When my youngest turned 1 last June, I knew that I was not long for these Interwebs and had a decision to make on this site...that is, whether to simply let it go away or to find someone that could cultivate what I'd attempted to plant in this space. Truthfully, Al was the first person I thought of and the only one that I thought could make it work - because of his work on the Farm side of things and due to his (despite his apparent ignorance to it) talent to write and express himself clearly, while providing insight that simply stood out.

I approached him about taking over the wheel here and (after he tried for probably 3 months to convince me to just keep on) he eventually agreed...and I couldn't be happier with what he's done here. Knowing his hectic work schedule and EVERYTHING else he's had going on this summer, the output and the quality of the writing is made all the more impressive.

From the interview with Shapiro (!), which is something I read throughout the season, to this perfect encapsulation of where most of us are as the season ends...albeit too soon, everything that's been written in this space has exceeded my admittedly high expectations.

Thanks guys, I really do appreciate it. Thanks to you and everyone who reads every week, because without you all this wouldn't be worth it. It's been a fun season, and I'm already counting the days until pitchers and catchers report to Goodyear.

Boston fan here: I browsed the Cleveland sports blogs for an hour and chose this one to share my link. Pray for us, Cleveland, not that we win, but that the ending not be something ridiculously stupid. Because I know you understand. http://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2013/10/fan-psychology.html

I once thought Boston had it worst, but this is not so. It's mostly just the Red Sox, and Cleveland has had it worse, as I finally admitted two years ago. http://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2011/02/nod-to-cleveland.html

BTW, congratulations on getting Francona. A good manager and a good man.

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